Photography equipment often seems overpriced. $1600 for a lens, $80 for a filter, $66 for a battery – the list goes on. If you’re a savvy photographer, you’ve found ways around some of this. You buy third-party equipment, you shop used stores and flea markets, and eBay is one of your primary vendors. For many things, this is an excellent system. Money saved is money earned, or something like that.
However, there are times when it’s better to go out and spend the money to buy a quality product that will do the job you need it to do, and will last. The most common instance is lenses – we tend to start off with cheap kit lenses and slow buy our way up to the glass we really want. Yes, it lets us get by in the meantime, but when you add up what you spent getting to your final choice, it’s usually more than you’d have spent if you’d just bought that 17-40mm L-series lens in the first place.
I’m on the topic of money and gear because I took a look at my tripod over the weekend. I saw a new Silk tripod the other day that extends up to 70.1″, which would be quite nice considering I’m 6’4″, and have to stoop over my current one. The Silk is $100 and as I debated if it was worth spending that much, I got out my current tripod – a Dynatran brand – and took a good look at it.
The Dynatran tripod came with a ballhead and cost me about $80. (I’ve since replaced the ballhead with a much nicer Bogen model that I found used.) It’s cheap, but it’s worked well for about two years. I noticed a while back that the plastic handle on the center-column adjustment was cracked. And then as I used it, I discovered that some of the leg locks were cracked. From a practical, professional standpoint, it’s no longer dependable. A new tripod isn’t just something to think about, it’s something that needs to happen, and soon.
So I got two years out of my $80. Actually less, when you figure that I’ve already replaced part of it. That’s not very impressive. I should have just sucked it up and bought a Silk (or Bogen or Gitzo or other reliable brand) to start with. It would have been easier and cheaper.
The next time you’re tempted to go cheap, stop and think about it for a moment. Will cheap really work? Will cheap last? Or will it be cheap today and expensive down the road? Yes, cheap might work in the short term, but in the long run, do you really want to pay twice?
